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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The audiobook was very well read, but I feel like this would have been one of those books better enjoyed read. The plain, undramatic style paradoxically heightens the horror of the experience of trench warfare and the purposelessness of it all in the mind of the young soldiers. All modern war books owe something to this one, it is clear now.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A really heavy book, absolute downer, but amazing writing and such an honest and harsh portayal of war. This book was banned by the Nazis and one can fully understand why as it would make people question the very idea of war. It strips away all its glory.
Beautiful book and a really heavy read.
Beautiful book and a really heavy read.
The author managed to write a book about foreign soldiers in a war about 100 years ago and it will still feel familiar to many modern American veterans & active service men & women.
Powerful, raw, a story that war is not just hell when there is fighting going on but that it brings hell in to your life. Whether it is fighting at the front, going on leave, coming back from leave, being in a hospital, or having pulled back from the front, it has ushered in a new and ugly world.
Even in translation, it is achingly eloquent.
Albert expresses it: "The war has ruined us for everything."
He is right. We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.
Even in translation, it is achingly eloquent.
I couldn’t get into it. I’m a history geek, but it just wasn’t for me. Felt almost impossible to pick up.
A harrowing perspective on the horrors of war. A tad drawn out in a few bits, but well written, gripping, and raw.
Stunning, more for what it doesn’t say that for what it does. It cleverly makes the point that we shall never know how bad war is, when the narrator says he would never tell his mother what it was like. The importance of food – the way the soldiers catch a goose and organise a feast in a basement: the persistence of civilised manners alongside basic urges. But an absence of blood-thirstiness or anger against the enemy – simply a sense of duty.